Photoinduced Multistage Phase Transitions in Ta2nise5

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Photoinduced Multistage Phase Transitions in Ta2nise5 Photoinduced multistage phase transitions in Ta2NiSe5 ‡ 1 ‡ 1,2 ‡ 3 1 1 1 Q. M. Liu , D.Wu ∗ , Z. A. Li , L. Y. Shi, Z. X. Wang, S. J. Zhang, 1 1 3 3 1 1, 4 T. Lin, T. C. Hu, H. F. Tian, J. Q. Li, T. Dong, and N. L. Wang∗ 1 International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China 2 Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong 523808, China 3 Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 4 Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, China Abstract: Utrafast control of material physical properties represents a rapid developing field in con- densed matter physics. Yet, accessing to the long-lived photoinduced electronic states is still in its early stage, especially with respect to an insulator to metal phase transition. Here, by combing transport mea- surement with ultrashort photoexcitation and coherent phonon spectroscopy, we report on photoinduced multistage phase transitions in Ta2NiSe5. Upon excitation by weak pulse intensity, the system is triggered to a short-lived state accompanied by a structural change. Further increasing the excitation intensity beyond a threshold, a photoinduced steady new state is achieved where the resistivity drops by more than four orders at temperature 50 K. This new state is thermally stable up to at least 350 K and exhibits the lattice structure different from any of the thermally accessible equilibrium states. Transmission electron microscopy reveals an in-chain Ta atom displacement in the photoinduced new structure phase. We also found that nano-sheet samples with the thickness less than the optical penetration depth are required for attaining a complete transition. ∗ Corresponding author: [email protected]; [email protected] Ultrashort laser pulse not are only a powerful tool to excite and probe non-equilibrium electronic processes in transient states, but also emerges as an useful method to induce phase transitions that may or may not be thermally accessible. The latter has drawn increasing attention because it enables ultrafast optical manipulation and control over material properties [1–13]. Among various photoinduced (PI) phase transitions and related phenomena, the ultrafast switching from an insulating to a metallic state is particularly attractive, for it has high potential for device applications. While some phase transitions are transient, in the sense that they recover on very short time scales, e.g. picoseconds (ps), others are permanent or meta-stable and require something other than time to reset them. Up to now, the PI insulator to steady metallic state is achieved only in few systems exhibiting competing orders or broken symmetry phases, e.g. manganites perovskites [3, 4, 9, 13] and a charge density wave (CDW) crystal of 1T-TaS2[8], with their PI states only surviving at temperatures far below the room temperature. PI nonthermal insulator-metal phase transition was also reported in a strongly correlated material VO2 [14, 15], however, a recent study questioned the claim and found no evidence for a hidden transient Mott-Hubbard non-thermal phase in VO2 [16]. Here we report on distinct PI multistage phase transitions with insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) characteristics in Ta2NiSe5 -the compound is currently known as an important candidate of excitonic insulator (EI) [17–19]. We show that in Ta2NiSe5, the new steady phase induced by the strong laser pulses has a lattice structure different from any of the initial equilibrium states and is thermally stable up to at least 350 K. Ta2NiSe5 is a two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals compound with typical in-plane quasi-one-dimensional (1D) substructure composed of parallel Ta and Ni atomic chains along a-axis of the lattice (Fig. 1a). Upon cooling, the system shows a second-order phase transition at Tc = 326 K accompanied by a slight shear distortion of those atomic 1D chains, that reduces the lattice symmetry from orthorhombic to monoclinic [19]. Our start point is the observation of the sharp resistance drop of ultrathin Ta2NiSe5 crystals induced by ultrafast laser pulses. The samples, with thicknesses of ∼ 30 nm (less than the penetration depth ∼ 55 nm at λ = 800 nm), are exfoliated from the bulk crystals (See Methods. Images of typical devices are shown in Supplementary Figure 1). To induce the resistance switching, laser pulses from a Ti:sapphire amplifier system with 800 nm wavelength, 35 fs duration and 2 1 kHz repetition were firstly used as the “writing” pulses with a fluence of ∼ 3.5 mJ/cm . As shown in Fig. 1b, after writing pulses, the resistance drops approximately four orders of magnitude at 50 K thereafter retains in a low resistance (LR) state. This PI-LR state is thermally stable up to at least 350 K by the measurement. Unlike the pristine resistivity showing a transition at Tc of 326 K, no anomaly is indicated in the temperature dependent resistivity down to 1.8 K for PI-LR state (Supplementary Figure 2). The activation energy of the PI-LR state is tiny and estimated as 4.3 meV, twenty times smaller than 2 the one of pristine state. To induce the PI-LR state, a threshold fluence ∼ 2.5 mJ/cm is required. We remark that, due to the very high resistance at low temperature, we could not measure the value of the resistance for the pristine nano-thickness sample below 50 K. It is estimated that the resistance can drop by 8 orders at 4 K by such ultrafast laser pulse excitations. The PI-LR state is repeated from device to device, no matter the sample growth batches. To gain insight into the microscopic nature of the PI-LR state, we investigated the time-resolved photo-excitations by pump-probe spectroscopy. In the experiments, the energies of pump and probe 2 2 pulse are kept low at ∼ 50 µJ/cm and ∼ 3 µJ/ cm respectively, to ensure minimal disturbance of those states (see Methods). Fig. 2a depicts the photoinduced relative change of transient reflectivity ΔR/R(t). The rising time is about 100 fs. It can be clearly recognized that the decay process of photoinduced reflectivity change ΔR/R(t) is superimposed by several coherent oscillations [20]. The reflectivity change could be well reproduced by two-exponential decay processes[21, 22], a fast one in the time scale of 0.5 -0.6 ps and a slow one with ∼ 10 ps. Presence of rapid and slow decay dynamics after FIG. 1. Resistivity switching of Ta2NiSe5 by the 35-fs laser pulse at 800 nm. a, The layered crystal structure of Ta2NiSe5. A quasi one-dimensional structure is formed by a single Ni chain and two Ta chains along a-axis. b, The four-probe resistance of the pristine (green) and PI-LR state (pink) after a 2 writing excitation ∼3.5 mJ/cm . Inset is the schematic of the sample and experimental configuration. The length of dotted red line indicates the time delay between the pump and probe pulses excitation has been observed in many systems. In general, the number of photoexcited hot electrons at zero time delay is related to the amplitude of ΔR/R. Those excited high-energy hot electrons release and transfer their energy to lattice through the emission of optical phonons. The sub-picosecond decay would be mainly attributed to hot electron relaxation via the energy exchange with strongly coupled phonons, the ∼ 10 ps decay process would be related to the energy exchange with other phonons or dephasing process. The fast decay process is in accordance well with the electronic pre-thermalization process revealed by tr-ARPES experiments [23, 24]. The coherent oscillations arise from the coherent phonon excitations. We extract the coherent phonon spectra by fast Fourier transformation from transient reflectivity spectra after subtracting the electronic decay background, as shown in Fig. 2b. For pristine state at 50K, five phonon modes of 1.0-, 2.0-, 3.0-, 3.7-, 4.0-THz are detected. These modes are identified as Ag symmetries in earlier studies [25], arising from displacive excitation of coherent phonons [26]. Remarkable differences can be found between the spectra of pristine state and PI-LR state at low temperatures. As shown in Fig.2b, the 2.0-and 3.7-THz modes are absent for PI-LR state at 50K. Besides, the peak frequencies of the remaining modes of PI-LR state are a little higher comparing with the ones of pristine state respectively. These changes in phonon FIG. 2. Pump-probe response spectra. a, Transient photoinduced reflectivity at various states. The signal is made up of the electronic response and the coherent oscillations. The gray lines represent fits to the measured data. b, the corresponding FFTs from transient reflectivity spectra after substracting the incoherent components. c, the temperature evolution of the coherent phonon spectra of pristine state (upper panel) and the PI-LR state (lower panel). In the experiment, the light polarizations of pump and probe are set parallel and perpendicular to a-axis respectively. number and frequency imply a PI lattice structural phase transition. More information of coherent modes evolution are recognized from the temperature dependent spectra (Fig. 2c). For the spectra of pristine sample, the 2.0 THz mode is present solely in the low temperature monoclinic phase, and the modes 3.7-and 4.0 THz gradually merge into one 3.7-THz across Tc accompanying the structural transition from monoclinic to orthorhombic phase. While for the PI-LR state, the temperature-dependent spectra show only three recognizable modes throughout the measured temperature range, irrespective of thermal cycles. Although the PI-LR phase does not show a phase transition in the measured temperature range, the coherent phonon modes in the PI-LR phase are very similar to those in the high temperature pristine phase in Ta2NiSe5, therefore, it is expected that the PI-LR phase is in the similar lattice symmetry but with different atomic construction comparing to the pristine high temperature orthorhombic phase.
Recommended publications
  • Lattice Dynamics of the Excitonic Insulator ${\Rm Ta} 2{\Rm Ni}({\Rm Se} {1-X}{\Rm S} X) 5$
    PHYSICAL REVIEW B 104, 045102 (2021) Editors’ Suggestion Lattice dynamics of the excitonic insulator Ta2Ni(Se1−xSx)5 Mai Ye ,1,* Pavel A. Volkov ,1,† Himanshu Lohani,2 Irena Feldman,2 Minsung Kim,1 Amit Kanigel,2 and Girsh Blumberg 1,3,‡ 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA 2Department of Physics, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel 3National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia (Received 22 April 2021; accepted 9 June 2021; published 2 July 2021) Recently, we employed electronic polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy to reveal the strongly correlated excitonic insulator (EI) nature of Ta2NiSe5 [Volkov et al., npj Quant. Mater. 6, 52 (2021)], and also showed that for Ta2Ni(Se1−xSx )5 alloys the critical excitonic fluctuations diminish with sulfur concentration x, exposing a cooperating lattice instability that takes over for large x [Volkov et al., arXiv:2104.07032]. Here we focus on the lattice dynamics of the EI family Ta2Ni(Se1−xSx )5 (x = 0,..., 1). We identify all Raman-active optical phonons of Ag (fully symmetric) and B2g (ac-quadrupole-like) symmetries (D2h point group) and study their evolution with temperature and sulfur concentration. We demonstrate the change of selection rules at temperatures below the orthorhombic-to-monoclinic transition at Tc (x) that is related to the EI phase. We find that Tc (x) decrease monotonically from 328 K for Ta2NiSe5 to 120 K for Ta2NiS5 and that the magnitude of lattice distortion also de- creases with the sulfur concentration x.Forx < 0.7, the two lowest frequency B2g phonon modes show strongly asymmetric line shapes at high temperatures due to Fano interference with the broad excitonic continuum present in a semimetallic state.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Ultrasonic Spectroscopy Applications in Condensed Matter
    ULTRASONIC SPECTROSCOPY APPLICATIONS IN CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS AND MATERIALS SCIENCE 1ST EDITION DOWNLOAD FREE BOOK Robert G Leisure | --- | --- | --- | 9781107154131 | --- | --- Condensed matter physics Built by scientists, for scientists. My research interests are motivated by this remarkable observation. One example is the incorporation of multiple functionalities such as superconductivity, magnetism, and ferroelectricity into a single material platform in search of multifunctionality. Cold atoms in optical lattices are used as quantum simulatorsthat is, they act as controllable systems that can model behavior of more complicated systems, such as frustrated magnets. One major project involves studies of ultrathin dielectrics silicon oxynitrides and metaloxides for nanoelectronic devices. Optical absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy measurements have become an important tool for structure-based characterization and DNA- assisted manipulation of carbon nanotubes. Other vigorous areas of research include such phenomena as metal-insulator transition, two- dimensional electron systems, magnetism, and quantum fluids and solids. In these systems, density currents propagating in chiral edge states are protected from scattering with disorder, which is a clear advantage for exciton based optical circuits. Branch of physics. Introduction to Many Body Physics. We can also create novel multiferroic, superconducting or ferroelectric materials by means of atomic-scale crystal-symmetry engineering. The methods are suitable to study defects, diffusion,
    [Show full text]
  • SIIM PIKKER Modification in the Emission and Spectral Shape Of
    DISSERTATIONES SIIM PIKKER PHYSICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 93 Modifi cation in the emission and spectral shape of photostable fl uorophores by nanometallic structures cation in the emission and spectral shape of photostable fl Modifi SIIM PIKKER Modifi cation in the emission and spectral shape of photostable fl uorophores by nanometallic structures Tartu 2014 ISSN 1406-0647 ISBN 978-9949-32-633-4 DISSERTATIONES PHYSICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 93 DISSERTATIONES PHYSICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 93 SIIM PIKKER Modification in the emission and spectral shape of photostable fluorophores by nanometallic structures The study was carried out at the Institute of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Tartu, Estonia. The dissertation was admitted on June 19, 2014 in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (solid state physics), and allowed for defence by the Council of the Institute of Physics, University of Tartu. Supervisors: Dr. Rünno Lõhmus, Institute of Physics, University of Tartu, Estonia; Dr. Ilmo Sildos, Institute of Physics, University of Tartu, Estonia; Dr. Leonid Dolgov, Institute of Physics, University of Tartu, Estonia. Opponents: Professor Gintautas Tamulaitis, Head of Semiconductor Physics Department, Vilnius University, Lithuania. Defence: August 21, 2014, University of Tartu (Tartu, Estonia) This work has been partially supported by graduate school “Functional materials and technologies”, receiving funding from the European Social Fund under project 1.2.0401.09-0079 in Estonia. ISSN 1406-0647 ISBN 978-9949-32-633-4 (print) ISBN 978-9949-32-634-1 (pdf) Copyright: Siim Pikker, 2014 University of Tartu Press www.tyk.ee TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS INCLUDED IN THE THESIS.....
    [Show full text]
  • Poster Session II: Fe-Based Superconductivity and Heavy-Fermion Physics
    Poster session II: Fe-based superconductivity and heavy-fermion physics II.1 It could be either FeSCs or URu2Si2 heavy fermions Girsh Blumberg (Rutgers University) II.2 Pairing correlation and Kondo-destruction in quantum critical heavy fermions Ang Cai (Rice University), Jed Pixley, Qimiao Si Abstract: How quantum criticality affects superconductivity is a central issue in strongly correlated systems. The problem is particularly pressing when the quantum criticality is beyond the Landau framework of order-parameter fluctuations, such as appearing in heavy fermion systems in the form of Kondo destruction [1]. In addition, $T_c$ in the heavy fermion systems is high as measured by their Fermi temperature. With these motivations, we address the pairing instabilities near a Kondo destruction quantum critical point (QCP). We study the cluster Bose-Fermi Anderson model and, using the Cluster Extended-DMFT approach, the Anderson lattice model. We have identified a Kondo destruction QCP between a heavy fermi liquid and an antiferromagnetic metal phase, and demonstrated enhanced pairing correlations in its vicinity [2]. Finally, we will discuss our initial studies on the role of multipolar degrees of freedom, showing a sequential destruction of a spin-orbital-coupled SU(4) Kondo entanglement and its realization in a cubic heavy fermion system Ce3Pd20Si6 [3]. [1] Q. Si and F. Steglich, Science 329, 1161 (2010). [2] A. Cai et al., to be published. [3] V. Martelli et al., arXiv:1709.09376. II.3 Memory matrix theory of a disordered antiferromagnetic metal with an effective composite operator Hermann Freire (Federal University of Goias, Brazil) Abstract: We compute the dc resistivity, the Hall angle and the magnetoresistance of the spin-fermion model, which is a phenomenological theory to describe the physics of the cuprates and iron-based superconductors.
    [Show full text]
  • Physics Illinois News
    PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN • 2007 NUMBER 1 Van Harlingen Exotic relatives discovered named 10th BY RICK KUBETZ playing a major role in the analysis of head of Physics the data, Pitts, along with his team n October, the CDF collaboration— of engineers, postdoctoral researchers, Iwhich includes researchers from the and graduate students, developed University of Illinois—announced at important components in the CDF n July 1, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory 2006, data acquisition system that made O the discovery of two rare types of this measurement possible. Dale J. Van particles, exotic relatives of the much Harlingen, “To observe a handful of these more common proton and neutron. new particles, we had to sift through Center for Kevin Pitts, an associate professor of Advanced more than 100 trillion Tevatron physics at Illinois, is one of the co- collisions,” said Pitts. “This discovery Study Professor leaders of the CDF physics group of Physics and would not have been possible were performing this measurement. it not for the high-speed processing Donald Biggar “This is the first observation of Willett Postdoc Anyes Taffard and graduate system developed here in Urbana.” the ∑b (“sigma-b) baryon, which is an Another key component of the Professor of extremely heavy cousin to the proton, student Christopher Marino working on Engineering, became the 10th head the CDF high-speed digital processing CDF detector is the “Central Outer much like an atom of iron is an Tracker” (COT), which is heavily of the Department of Physics at the extremely heavy cousin to an atom of system University of Illinois at Urbana- utilized in event identification and hydrogen,” Pitts explained.
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:1608.02925V3 [Cond-Mat.Str-El] 18 Aug 2016 Theoretical Perspective
    SCES SUMMARY TALK Theory Perspective: SCES 2016. Piers Colemana,b aCenter for Materials Theory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, 136 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019, USA b Department of Physics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. ARTICLE HISTORY Compiled October 19, 2018 ABSTRACT New discoveries and developments in almost every area of correlated electron physics were presented at SCES 2016. Here, I provide a personal perspective on some of these developments, highlighting some new ideas in computational physics, discussing the \hidden order" challenges of cuprate and heavy electron superconductors, the mys- terious bulk excitations of the topological Kondo insulator SmB6 and new progress in research on quantum spin ice, iron based superconductors and quantum criticality. KEYWORDS Correlated electrons; quantum matter; topological kondo insulators;spin liquids; quantum criticality 1. Introduction: A Deluge of discovery and mystery. One of the great insights of the 20th century physics is that matter can acquire wholly unexpected new properties we call \emergence", from the collective behavior of interacting quantum particles that lie within the material. The quest to dis- cover, understand and harness materials with such novel emergent properties is the 21st century frontier of \Strongly Correlated Electron Systems" (SCES). In May 2016, the International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems, SCES 2016 convened for the first time in China, at Zhejiang University in historic Hangzhou. SCES is a field of research that continues to surprise its most optimistic participants, with a deluge of discovery and new mysteries that confront us each year. Here I'd like to share with you some of the exciting developments that caught my eye at this meeting, complimenting Joe Thompson's experimentally focused summary by emphasizing a arXiv:1608.02925v3 [cond-mat.str-el] 18 Aug 2016 theoretical perspective.
    [Show full text]
  • Poster Session II: Fe-Based Superconductivity and Heavy-Fermion Physics
    Poster session II: Fe-based superconductivity and heavy-fermion physics II.1 It could be either FeSCs or URu2Si2 heavy fermions Girsh Blumberg (Rutgers University) II.2 Pairing correlation and Kondo-destruction in quantum critical heavy fermions Ang Cai (Rice University), Jed Pixley, Qimiao Si Abstract: How quantum criticality affects superconductivity is a central issue in strongly correlated systems. The problem is particularly pressing when the quantum criticality is beyond the Landau framework of order-parameter fluctuations, such as appearing in heavy fermion systems in the form of Kondo destruction [1]. In addition, $T_c$ in the heavy fermion systems is high as measured by their Fermi temperature. With these motivations, we address the pairing instabilities near a Kondo destruction quantum critical point (QCP). We study the cluster Bose-Fermi Anderson model and, using the Cluster Extended-DMFT approach, the Anderson lattice model. We have identified a Kondo destruction QCP between a heavy fermi liquid and an antiferromagnetic metal phase, and demonstrated enhanced pairing correlations in its vicinity [2]. Finally, we will discuss our initial studies on the role of multipolar degrees of freedom, showing a sequential destruction of a spin-orbital-coupled SU(4) Kondo entanglement and its realization in a cubic heavy fermion system Ce3Pd20Si6 [3]. [1] Q. Si and F. Steglich, Science 329, 1161 (2010). [2] A. Cai et al., to be published. [3] V. Martelli et al., arXiv:1709.09376. II.3 Hund's Coupling Stabilized Superconductivity in the Presence of Spin Orbit Interactions Alfred Ka Chun Cheung (Stanford University), Daniel Agterberg Abstract: Local repulsive Coulomb interactions cannot lead to attractive superconducting pairing states, except through the Kohn-Luttinger mechanism.
    [Show full text]
  • NICPB in 2020: Development Plan and Overview of the Institute
    NICPB in 2020: development plan and overview of the institute Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 2 2 Development Plan 2026.............................................................................................................. 3 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3 2.2 Mission ............................................................................................................................... 3 2.3 Common Values .................................................................................................................. 3 2.4 Current Situation and Challenges .......................................................................................... 4 2.5 Strategic Research Programmes (SRP) ..................................................................................... 4 2.6 Competences ...................................................................................................................... 5 2.7 Vision 2026 ........................................................................................................................ 5 2.8 Strategic Goals 2026 ........................................................................................................... 6 2.9 Milestones and Activities ......................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Hsiang-Hsi Kung
    Hsiang-Hsi “Sean” Kung (孔祥曦) Curriculum Vitae Tel: (604) 8273578 (Office); E-mail: [email protected] Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T1Z4, Canada EDUCATION Ph.D., Physics, Rutgers University (Advisor: Dr. Blumberg, Girsh) 2012-17 Dissertation: “Collective excitations in the Antisymmetric Channel of Raman Spectroscopy” M.S., Physics, National Taiwan University (Advisor: Dr. Lee, Wei-Li) 2009-11 Thesis: “Transport Properties of Some Layered Compounds” B.S., Physics, National Taiwan University 2004-08 AWARDS SBQMI Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of British Columbia 2017-present QuantEmX Scientist Exchange Award, ICAM-I2CAM 2017 DCMP Travel Award, American Physical Society 2017 FGSA Travel Award, American Physical Society 2016 Theodore E. Madey Award for Best Oral Presentation, 29th Annual LSM Symposium 2015 University and Louis Bevier Graduate Fellowship, Rutgers University 2015-16 David C. Langreth Graduate Development Award, Rutgers University 2014 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Graduate Research Assistant, Rutgers University 2013-17 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Rutgers University 2012 Graduate Mentor for Aresty and REU Research Program, Rutgers University 2014 – 16 Graduate Research Assistant, Academia Sinica, Institute of Physics 2011 – 12 INVITED TALKS Correlated Electron and Mesoscopics seminars, University of Illinois, USA (2016 Urbana-Champaign) Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Canada (2016 Vancouver) Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan (2015 Taipei) Gordon Research Seminar: Superconductivity, Hong Kong (2015 Hong Kong) RESEARCH INTEREST Experimental condensed matter physics: Raman spectroscopy, photo-luminescence spectroscopy, heavy fermions, strongly correlated electron system, topological insulators, low dimensional quantum materials WORKSHOP / CONFERENCE / SCHOOL Workshop on Spins, Valleys, and Topological States in 2D and Layered Materials (2017 Columbus) Workshop on Exp.
    [Show full text]
  • ICMAT COVER As of 270509.Indd
    G Plasmonics and Applications International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies 2009 ICMAT 2009 AND TIONAL U ERNA NION INT OF International Union of Materials Research Societies- M A S TE TIE RIA CIE LS RESEARCH SO International Conference in Asia 2009 IUMRS - ICA 2009 28 June - 3 July 2009, Singapore Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre www.mrs.org.sg Symposium G Plasmonics and Applications Chairs Boris LUK’YANCHUK, Data Storage Institute, A*STAR, Singapore Daniel S. PICKARD, National University of Singapore, Singapore Co-Chairs Mark BRONGERSMA, Stanford University, USA Girsh BLUMBERG, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA Erping LI, Institute for High Performance Computing, Singapore Correspondence Daniel S. PICKARD National University of Singapore Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Block E4, Level 5, Room 45 4 Engineering Drive 3 Singapore 117576 Email: [email protected] Tel: (65) 65167116 Fax: (65) 67791103 Scope of Symposium There is a growing interest in the sub-wavelength control and manipulation of electromagnetic energy at optical frequencies (nano-photonics). A rapidly expanding branch of this field, plasmonics, aims at harnessing the unique properties of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) to miniaturize optical components to the nanoscopic dimensions of their electronic counterparts. Metallic nanostructures can also be fabricated to concentrate and locally enhance the electromagnetic fields by orders of magnitude. This effect is achieved by either engineering the metallic nanostructures to function as optical antennas or by controlling the illumination conditions to launch SPPs at a metal-vacuum or metal-dielectric interface. The potential applications of these phenomena span many disciplines and include high speed nano-scale interconnects, meta- materials, chemical and biological sensing, sub-wavelength optics and waveguides, near-field optical trapping, high- density data storage, and the enhancement of non-linear effects.
    [Show full text]
  • Research Projects
    CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND UNIVERSITY OF GÖTEBORG THE CENTRE FOR MATERIALS SCIENCE Catalogue of Research Projects Publication No 1:1993 MC- The Centre for Materials Science Catalogue of Research Projects Publication No 1:1993 Göteborg, Sweden 1993 Catalogue of Research Projects Publication No 1:1993 ISSN 1104-3539 ISRN CTH-MC-PBS -1 -SE Editor: Associate professor Kent Skarp Published by The Centre for Materials Science Chalmers University of Technology and University of Göteborg Address: The Centre for Materials Science Chalmers University of Technology S-412 96 Göteborg Sweden Phone:+ 46 31 772 3384 Fax:+ 46 31 77? 3584 Cover illustration: Eric Werner Graphic design: Information Office, Chalmers University of Technology Printed by Svenskt Tryck Suite 1993 Preface Materials technology isof vital importance in every area of modern life. Basic scientific research and technological applications go hand in hand and provide mutual stimulation. Economical manufacturing technology, superior device performance, minimized use of raw materials and energy, and diminished environmental impact are key factors constantly providing new challenges for materials research and development. The materials arena is of highly inter- disciplinary character, and many of the most exciting developments lie at the boundaries between traditional disciplines. This was realized at Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg more than two decades ago and led to the founding of a Centre for Materials Science. The Centre serves as an umbrella for organizations involved in materials research at the two Universities and at certain branch institutes in the Gothenburg region. The general goal of the Centre is to promote materials research among the member organizations as well as to provide a link to industry and to the society at large.
    [Show full text]
  • Activity Report 2007–2010 NICPB 1980–2010
    National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics Activity Report 2007–2010 NICPB 1980–2010 ISBN 9 78-9949-21-708-3 9 7 8 9 9 4 9 2 1 7 0 8 3 National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics Activity Report 2007–2010 NICPB 1980–2010 Toomas Välimäe, Ed. 2011 Kujundus ja trükk OÜ Vali Press ISBN 978-9949-21-708-3 3 4 Mission NICPB is a professional science institution, where the main task of the scientists is research that values academic freedom. NICPB carries out fundamental and applied research and engages in the development of the novel direc- tions in material sciences, gene- and biotechnology, environmental technology and computer science. NICPB helps to educate a new generation of scientists in accordance with the association contracts and other contracts with the universities and other academic institutions. Institute introduces its work regularly in other research and degree-granting institutions, in specialised literature, scientific conferences and public media. Vision NICPB is an integrated and effective scientific institution, where all employees recognise their responsi- bilities and possibilities in achieving the goals of the Institute. NICPB`s reputation is based on high-level research, initiation of innovative topics and development of competence and scientific infrastructure at national and also international level. Preface NICPB is a unique phenomenon on the scientific landscape of Esto- nia, most likely also so in the Baltic States and maybe even in the whole Northern Europe. As the only Institute from the former Academy of Sci- ences surviving the wave of merges to various universities, it nowadays sets an example of purely professional scientific research institution in our country.
    [Show full text]